My OperaThe economic crisis
Thursday, December 25, 2008 1:50:18 PM
The baby boomers are retiring. Since 2000 have retired has increased from 28 million to approximately 66 million. The number of retired people as a percentage of the total working population has increased from 19% to 34%: (The percentage of people over 65 (retired) as a percentage of the productive working population (over 25) in the US.)
2000 19%
2010 34%
2020 47%
The baby boomers are reaching retirement age. They are using up their savings and investments now. They are down-sizing their homes and cars. They are spending less. This is the fundamental problem with the global economy. When the baby boomers were in their most productive cycle, between the ages of 25 to 55, the world economy grew and there was a financial and technological boom. The workforce of General Motors:
1983 691,000
1985 811,000
2008 111,000
A very large portion of their 1985 workforce is now retired and living off the company's retirement fund and healthcare. GM health expenditures – $1,525 per car produced; there is more health care than steel in a GM vehicle’s price tag – is one of the main reasons it lost $1.1 billion in the first quarter of 2005.
My point is that the entire world economy is affected in the same way by the retiring baby boomers.
During the recent financial boom and the recent technological advances in communication and computerization, brought growth and a certain amount of prosperity to many third world countries like India, China and Korea. So much so, that their populations became a lot more affluent and as a result of this, their population growth reduced significantly. China regulated their population growth with legislation and so their present population is significantly lower in these countries than it would have been had they stayed as they were.
The present decline in the global economy could directly result in a decline in technological advances.
As a result of economic decline, there could be wide-spread civil unrest. There will be demonstrations and political unrest. Police and the military will have to deal with rioting and looting.
To deal with the financial decline world leaders are intervening in the economies and so there is a significant shift away from the unregulated free-market of the past towards more regulation and controls and this will also retard future technological advances. This would probably also result in the formation of a world government to oversee the global economy, more or less like an expansion of the European Union to include all countries. The will regulate the world economy and there will probably be an armed forces attached to the world government and perhaps even a global police force.
The levels of affluence and the higher levels of education that the greater part of the global population has achieved will further retard the global population growth and will continue to do so into the not future and even into the far distant future. This reduction in word population will create a huge demand for people in all major cities around the world. Cities will advertise for people and Countries will relax, and eventually abolish, all forms of immigration control. The more successful cities will grow as people migrate to them and the less successful ones will eventually shut down.
Vast areas and perhaps even continents might become uninhabited. It might be tempting to think that as the population declines and as the economies shrink, that the regression will cause the populations to grow again, but this will be off-set by the levels of education that will be maintained. Whereas in the past the uneducated and poor people had much higher population growths, the future would probably not take the same route because the higher level of education will prevent this and more so, if there is a world government in place in the future.
The not too distant future may be a very dull place where there might never be anything new under the sun. They might not see much innovation in technology and the population and financial declines will find some equilibrium and eventually stabilize, but it will never return to the levels that it has reached in the recent past. The world government with its regulations and controls will restrict future growth, perhaps even to the extreme like the Chinese government restricted its population growth and controlled their population's freedom with left-wing partisan doctrine.
References:
http://www.migrationinformation.org/DataTools/graphs/pyramid_1.shtml
http://books.google.co.za/books?id=RGmHAVPhmRwC&pg=PA357&lpg=PA357&dq=gm+workforce&source=web&ots=h6y3xO7f6B&sig=ll3Vw7Hy-KLxupWZ6tV1u5N_Sw4&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result
http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/26/news/companies/pluggedin_taylor_ford.fortune/index.htm
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north370.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north370.html
2000 19%
2010 34%
2020 47%
The baby boomers are reaching retirement age. They are using up their savings and investments now. They are down-sizing their homes and cars. They are spending less. This is the fundamental problem with the global economy. When the baby boomers were in their most productive cycle, between the ages of 25 to 55, the world economy grew and there was a financial and technological boom. The workforce of General Motors:
1983 691,000
1985 811,000
2008 111,000
A very large portion of their 1985 workforce is now retired and living off the company's retirement fund and healthcare. GM health expenditures – $1,525 per car produced; there is more health care than steel in a GM vehicle’s price tag – is one of the main reasons it lost $1.1 billion in the first quarter of 2005.
My point is that the entire world economy is affected in the same way by the retiring baby boomers.
During the recent financial boom and the recent technological advances in communication and computerization, brought growth and a certain amount of prosperity to many third world countries like India, China and Korea. So much so, that their populations became a lot more affluent and as a result of this, their population growth reduced significantly. China regulated their population growth with legislation and so their present population is significantly lower in these countries than it would have been had they stayed as they were.
The present decline in the global economy could directly result in a decline in technological advances.
As a result of economic decline, there could be wide-spread civil unrest. There will be demonstrations and political unrest. Police and the military will have to deal with rioting and looting.
To deal with the financial decline world leaders are intervening in the economies and so there is a significant shift away from the unregulated free-market of the past towards more regulation and controls and this will also retard future technological advances. This would probably also result in the formation of a world government to oversee the global economy, more or less like an expansion of the European Union to include all countries. The will regulate the world economy and there will probably be an armed forces attached to the world government and perhaps even a global police force.
The levels of affluence and the higher levels of education that the greater part of the global population has achieved will further retard the global population growth and will continue to do so into the not future and even into the far distant future. This reduction in word population will create a huge demand for people in all major cities around the world. Cities will advertise for people and Countries will relax, and eventually abolish, all forms of immigration control. The more successful cities will grow as people migrate to them and the less successful ones will eventually shut down.
Vast areas and perhaps even continents might become uninhabited. It might be tempting to think that as the population declines and as the economies shrink, that the regression will cause the populations to grow again, but this will be off-set by the levels of education that will be maintained. Whereas in the past the uneducated and poor people had much higher population growths, the future would probably not take the same route because the higher level of education will prevent this and more so, if there is a world government in place in the future.
The not too distant future may be a very dull place where there might never be anything new under the sun. They might not see much innovation in technology and the population and financial declines will find some equilibrium and eventually stabilize, but it will never return to the levels that it has reached in the recent past. The world government with its regulations and controls will restrict future growth, perhaps even to the extreme like the Chinese government restricted its population growth and controlled their population's freedom with left-wing partisan doctrine.
References:
http://www.migrationinformation.org/DataTools/graphs/pyramid_1.shtml
http://books.google.co.za/books?id=RGmHAVPhmRwC&pg=PA357&lpg=PA357&dq=gm+workforce&source=web&ots=h6y3xO7f6B&sig=ll3Vw7Hy-KLxupWZ6tV1u5N_Sw4&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result
http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/26/news/companies/pluggedin_taylor_ford.fortune/index.htm
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north370.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north370.html
